Professional Services
Private AI, client portals and automation for law, accounting and consulting firms
We build knowledge assistants, client portals and workflow automation for law, accounting, consulting, engineering and architecture practices. Confidential client data stays inside systems you control, and every AI output that matters is reviewed by a professional before it leaves the firm.
Overview
Technology for professional services firms
Professional services software is the technology a firm that sells expertise, such as a law firm, accountancy, consultancy or engineering practice, uses to take on clients, run matters or engagements, record time, find its own past work and keep clients informed. Increasingly it includes private AI that searches and drafts within the firm's confidentiality rules, while professionals stay accountable for the advice.
Much of the working week still goes on tasks that need neither judgement nor trust: chasing documents, re-keying client data, searching old files for a precedent and writing the same status update for the third time. Generative AI suits much of this, but confidentiality, legal privilege and professional standards rule out public chatbots and unchecked drafts. The design task is keeping AI private, permission-aware and reviewed.
Softweb Planet began with websites and digital marketing and now builds the systems behind them: private assistants over your precedents and past work, intake flows that take an enquiry through to a signed engagement letter, document extraction for client records and portals that keep clients informed without yet another email.
Challenges
What professional services firms are up against
Admin eating into fee-earning time
Engagement letters, identity checks, time entries and document chasing fall to senior people as often as to support staff, and none of it appears on an invoice.
Precedents that only their author can find
The strongest clause, the winning proposal or last year's advice on the same question sits in a matter folder that only its author remembers, so juniors redraft from scratch.
Client documents arriving in every format
Bank statements, invoices, contracts and identity documents come as scans, photos and spreadsheets, and someone has to read them and type the figures into practice systems.
Ethical walls that generic AI search ignores
A search tool that indexes everything it can reach can surface documents from a matter a fee earner is walled off from, or from a client who has asked that AI not be used on their work.
Conflict checks that hold up new instructions
A new client cannot be taken on until conflicts are cleared and identity is verified, and when that depends on someone searching the practice system by hand, prospects wait days for an answer.
Clients chasing for updates
Status questions arrive by phone and email because clients cannot see where their matter or engagement stands, and each reply interrupts billable work.
What we build
Technology solutions for this sector
Private knowledge assistant over precedents and past work
Retrieval over your document management system, precedents and past advice, with client, matter and ethical-wall permissions applied to every search and each answer citing the exact clause or paragraph it relied on.
Client intake, conflict and engagement automation
Web and WhatsApp intake, qualification questions, a conflict search against existing clients and parties, identity document collection, engagement letters generated from templates and the new record created in your CRM.
Financial and contract document extraction
Figures pulled from bank statements, invoices and receipts for accountants, and parties, dates and key clauses from contracts for lawyers, as structured data a reviewer approves before it is posted.
Secure client portal
Document exchange, matter or engagement status, outstanding tasks, invoices and secure messaging in one place, with role-based access and an audit trail of who viewed or uploaded what.
Proposal and tender response drafting
First drafts of proposals, tender responses and reports assembled from your approved capability statements, case summaries and past winning bids, for the professional to refine and sign off.
Time capture suggestions and billing automation
Suggested time entries from calendar events, emails and document activity, matched to the right matter, with unbilled work in progress flagged for partners to review.
Search-ready expertise website
Service and sector pages, partner profiles, schema markup and content structured for AI answer engines, so prospects find the firm when they search for a specialist.
Professional firms carry duties of confidentiality and, for legal work, privilege. We design systems so client data stays within environments you control, use enterprise AI terms that exclude training on your data and keep professionals responsible for advice. We do not provide legal or regulatory advice, and your firm's compliance team confirms specific obligations.
Typical projects
Where we usually start
- 01An accounting practice extracting transactions from client bank statements into its bookkeeping workflow, with staff approving each batch before it is posted
- 02A law firm giving fee earners a private assistant that finds relevant precedents and past advice across the matters they are permitted to see
- 03A consultancy producing first-draft proposals from its own case summaries and methodology documents
- 04An engineering or architecture practice moving client document exchange and project updates from email into a secure portal
- 05Automating enquiry intake so every prospect receives an acknowledgement, a conflict check starts and a call is booked without manual chasing
Services and solutions
How we help professional services firms
Professional Services FAQ
Frequently asked questions
It inherits them from your document and practice management systems rather than keeping its own rules. Each document is indexed with its client, matter and access list, and every search is filtered against the signed-in user's permissions and any information barrier they sit behind, so walled-off matters never appear in results or answers. Clients who have restricted AI use can be excluded at matter level. Permission changes are synchronised on a schedule, and every query is logged for your risk team.
Automate the collection and preparation, and keep the decisions with your people. An intake form or WhatsApp conversation gathers the client's details and the nature of the work, a conflict search runs against existing clients and parties, and identity documents are requested and checked for completeness. The engagement letter is drafted from your templates and sent for e-signature, and the client record is created in your CRM or practice system. Possible conflicts and identity concerns go to the responsible partner to clear.
Yes, including scanned and photographed statements, with a person approving the output before it is posted. The pipeline extracts dates, descriptions, amounts and running balances, then checks that each page reconciles from its opening to its closing balance, which catches missed or misread lines. Low-confidence fields are highlighted for a reviewer rather than passed through silently. Approved transactions go to bookkeeping software such as Xero or QuickBooks through its API or an import file, with the source page linked to every line.
That depends on your engagement terms, your regulator's guidance and what each client has agreed, so it is a decision for your risk and compliance lead rather than for us. What we can do is make sure the system honours whatever you decide. Matters can carry a flag that excludes them from indexing and drafting tools, engagement letter templates can include the wording you choose, and logs show which AI tools touched which matter and when, if a client ever asks.
At minimum, secure document exchange, a clear status for each matter or engagement, outstanding tasks for the client and a message thread that replaces scattered email. Many firms add invoice viewing and payment, e-signature for engagement letters and automatic notifications when a status changes. Access must be role-based so each client contact sees only their own work, with an audit trail of uploads, downloads and views. We shape the rest around your service lines.
Yes, as a first draft built from your own approved material. We index capability statements, team biographies, case summaries and past proposals, and the assistant assembles a draft that answers the specific questions in a tender or brief, showing which sources it used. Partners then edit tone, pricing and commitments. This removes much of the copy-and-adapt work while keeping judgement about fit, risk and pricing with the people accountable for the bid.
Most systems that offer a documented API or a supported integration. In professional firms that typically means document management such as iManage, NetDocuments or SharePoint, practice management such as Clio, accounting software such as Xero or QuickBooks, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace email and calendars, and your CRM. We confirm what each of your systems exposes during discovery and prefer official APIs over screen automation. Where a system offers no integration at all, a scheduled export with a validated import is the fallback.
We build review into the workflow, so nothing AI-drafted can be sent without a named professional approving it. Drafts are clearly marked, show the sources they used and sit in a review queue. The reviewer edits or rejects them, and the system records who approved what and when. For higher-risk outputs such as advice letters or tax figures, a second reviewer can be required. Rejected drafts feed into evaluation so quality improves over time.
Yes, provided someone else looks after the technical side. For a small practice we can host the assistant and its search index in the firm's own Microsoft 365 or cloud account, connect it to the document storage you already use, and manage updates, monitoring and model access under a support arrangement. Staff sign in with their existing work accounts. Costs depend on the number of users, document volume and integrations; we give a fixed quote after discovery and estimate monthly running costs before you commit.
Start your project
Tell us what you're building.
Share the problem, the systems involved and where you want to be. A senior engineer replies with honest advice on scope, architecture and the fastest safe path to production.